Wrath of Artemis

Author: Pseudo-Apollodorus; Pseudo-Hyginus; Homer

Time Period: 999 BCE–1 BCE; 1 CE–500 CE

Country or Culture: Greek; Roman

Genre: Myth

Overview

Ferocious yet beautiful, untouched yet nurturing, the goddess Artemis captivates readers with her strange contradictions. A primary deity in the Greek pantheon, Artemis (known as Diana in Roman myths) is the daughter of Zeus and Leto and the sister of Apollo. In ancient Greece, she was worshipped as a virgin goddess associated primarily with hunting and animals but also with major life transitions for women, particularly adolescence and childbirth. Nonetheless, some of the most popular myths about Artemis illustrate her punishing, wrathful nature. Three of these myths include the stories of Actaeon, Niobe, and Callisto as related in the Bibliotheca (The Library of Greek Mythology), once attributed to the Greek grammarian Apollodorus. The story of Callisto also appears in the Poetica Astronomica, formerly attributed to the Roman poet Gaius Julius Hyginus. Both texts are dated in the first century BCE and are now believed to be of uncertain authorship.

Actaeon is a hunter who gazes at Artemis while she bathes, so the offended goddess transforms him into a deer, prompting his own hunting dogs to devour him. Niobe is a mother graced with numerous children, but when her maternal pride gets the better of her and she declares herself more blessed than Leto, the mother of Artemis, Leto commands Artemis and Apollo to kill nearly all of Niobe’s children. The aggrieved mother ultimately prays to be turned to stone, in which form she nonetheless weeps continually. A virginal devotee and Artemis’s favorite, Callisto (Kallistô) becomes pregnant after she is raped by Zeus. When Callisto can no longer hide her pregnancy from Artemis, the goddess cruelly punishes her by changing her into a bear and even killing the animal according to some sources, but Zeus takes pity and places the animal among the constellations, calling it Arctos.

These stories raise puzzling questions about the nature of Artemis. What is the relationship between her various roles, specifically her connections with hunting and with women’s rites of passage? Why does a virgin goddess provide protection for women in childbirth? Furthermore, what is the meaning of Artemis’s wrath in these stories, particularly her punishment of Callisto, whom one might expect to receive protection from a goddess who presides over childbirth? These questions are best addressed by examining the prehistoric origins of Artemis, which numerous scholars identify in the Neolithic age of Europe. An anthropological analysis examines both archeological and textual evidence, which traces Artemis to the ancient European goddess of life and death, a deity that flourished for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Indo-European people in Europe.

Believed to be the source of life and death, this prehistoric goddess embodies a radically different view of the life cycle and accounts for the animalistic ferocity and maternal nurturing that Artemis continued to represent in ancient Greece. An anthropological interpretation thus demonstrates how Artemis evolved as a goddess from prehistoric times through classical Greek culture, revealing that although patriarchal cultures diminished the goddess in important ways, many of her core characteristics remain intact in Greek myths. In this way, an anthropological approach allows us to trace the history of Artemis and to comprehend her ruthlessness as only one facet of her manifold nature.

Summary

Pseudo-Apollodorus begins his brief story of Actaeon by naming his parents, Autonoë and Aristaeus, and the centaur Cheiron, who raised Actaeon and trained him as a huntsman. Mentioning one version of the story in which Zeus punishes Actaeon because he courted Semele, Pseudo-Apollodorus claims that the more common reason for Actaeon’s death is that “he saw Artemis bathing” (61). When Actaeon spies the goddess bathing, she transforms him immediately into a deer, driving “his fifty hunting dogs into a frenzy so that they unintentionally ate him” (61). Then, lacking their master, the dogs howl and bay as they begin to search for him. The search leads the dogs to the cave of Cheiron, who produces a “likeness” of Actaeon to soothe the dogs.

Pseudo-Apollodorus also tells the story of Niobe, daughter of Tantalus and wife of Amphion. Niobe is blessed with fourteen children, seven sons and seven daughters, but Pseudo-Apollodorus points out that accounts differ regarding the precise number of her children, with Hesiod claiming that she bore ten sons and ten daughters, Herodotus stating she had five children in total, and Homer asserting that she had six sons and six daughters. Exceedingly proud of her fertility, Niobe “claim[s] to be more blest with children than Leto” (63), daughter of the Titans and the mother of Artemis and Apollo. Niobe’s arrogance offends Leto, who “urge[s] Artemis and Apollo against Niobe’s children” (64). Artemis uses her arrows to kill the female children of Niobe, and Apollo kills the males. According to Pseudo-Apollodorus, Amphion is spared among the males, and the daughter Chloris (Khlôris) is also not killed. The grief-stricken Niobe then departs from Thebes and returns to her father. After she prays to Zeus, she is metamorphosed into stone, but even in this form, she weeps continually.

Both Pseudo-Apollodorus and Pseudo-Hyginus recount the story of Callisto. Pseudo-Apollodorus states that Callisto, who is reported as a mortal by some sources and as a nymph by others, is “a hunting companion of Artemis” (71), who dresses like the goddess and swears an oath to maintain her virginity. Zeus, however, falls in love with her, disguises himself as Artemis or, according to some sources, Apollo, and rapes her. Wishing to elude the suspicions of his wife, Hera, Zeus transforms Callisto into a bear, but Hera convinces Artemis to hunt down and kill the animal. Other sources claim that Artemis shoots Callisto because the latter fails to protect her virginity. Callisto had become pregnant by Zeus, so he delivers her baby, Arcas, to be reared by Maia. He transforms Callisto into a star and names it Arctus. Pseudo-Hyginus provides a longer version of the story in book 2 of his Poetica Astronomica. There, he names Hesiod as his source and states that Callisto was the daughter of Lycaon, ruler in Arcadia. Dedicated to hunting, she follows Diana (the Roman name for Artemis), who grows to love Callisto because of their “similar temperaments” (181). After Jove (Zeus) impregnates Callisto, she is afraid to disclose the truth to Diana, but the goddess eventually discovers it when the signs of Callisto’s pregnancy become obvious. When Callisto bathes in a stream “near the time of her delivery” (181), Diana realizes that her devotee has broken her oath of virginity. “In keeping with her deep distrust” (181), Diana punishes Callisto severely by changing her into a bear, and Callisto gives birth in her animal form to Arcas.

“Out of her zeal for hunting she [Callisto] joined Diana, and was greatly loved by the goddess because of their similar temperaments. Later, when made pregnant by Jove, she feared to tell the truth to Diana. But she couldn’t conceal it long, for as her womb grew heavier near the time of her delivery, when she was refreshing her tired body in a stream, Diana realized she had not preserved her virginity.”

Pseudo-Hyginus then offers various sources to elaborate the story and to offer alternate versions. First, he states that Jupiter (Zeus) tricks Callisto by disguising himself as Diana and by pretending to assist Callisto in her hunt. In this way, he is able to overpower her when they are separated from their group. Later, when Diana asks about Callisto’s swollen belly, Callisto states that it is “the goddess’ fault” (181), which angers Diana and provokes her to transform Callisto into a bear. As a bear, Callisto wanders in the forest, and she and her son are captured by some Aetolians, who present the two as a gift to King Lycaon. Unaware of the law, she and her son charge into a temple, prompting the Arcadians to try to kill both mother and son. Jupiter then saves them by placing them among the constellations, naming Callisto Arctos and her son Arctophylax.

Pseudo-Hyginus reports other sources claiming that Juno, wife of Jupiter, becomes angry at her husband’s betrayal and thus transforms Callisto into a bear. Later, Diana is hunting and kills the bear but places it among the constellations after recognizing the creature. Still other sources report that Jupiter himself changes Callisto into a bear to hide his infidelity from Juno, who rushes to the scene in an attempt to catch her husband in the act. When Juno discovers a bear instead of a mortal woman, she directs Diana to kill the animal. Saddened, Jupiter “put[s] in the sky the likeness of a bear represented with stars” (181).

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